Hemingway and the Aristotelian Tragedy

Because Ernest Hemingway's four major novels are often referred to as tragedies, these novels are checked against Aristotle's criteria for tragedy. "The Sun Also Rises" is not an Aristotelian tragedy because the wounding of Jake Barnes precedes the events in the novel; it is, instead, an extended tragic epilogue. "A Farewell to Arms" is a modern anti-romantic tragedy of irony, a story of disillusionment which does not provide cathartic relief. The most nearly tragic in structure, "The Old Man and the Sea" does not provide a catharsis because Hemingway fails to arouse the necessary emotions. The most tragic of the four in effect, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" lacks the proper structure for tragedy, but is a tragic epical novel. Although all four of these books have elements of the Aristotelian tragedy, all are other types of tragedy.